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Missile Kills 5 in Northwest Pakistan; U.S. Denies Attack

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 2 — A missile fired from an unmanned aerial drone killed five militants and wounded six other people in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas on Friday, according to a Pakistani security official and a local resident.

The United States has used drones to carry out attacks on militants in the area in the past, but in Washington, a Pentagon spokesman denied that the American military was involved in a strike, Reuters reported. A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency, which operates drones as well, declined to comment.

The missile killed the militants inside a compound near a large madrasa, or religious school, that was established by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban commander with close ties to Osama bin Laden, the security official said. The strike took place in a village outside Miran Shah, the administrative center of the North Waziristan tribal area.

The compound served as a safe house for Islamic fighters crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and was owned by a militant leader from Waziristan, according to the official. Villagers said the drone had fired two missiles, one that exploded inside the compound and another that failed to detonate.

American officials have denied operating drones inside Pakistan, but after previous strikes, local residents and militants have produced missile fragments with American markings. Some strikes have killed senior militants, while others have killed large numbers of civilians.

Mr. Haqqani met Mr. bin Laden when the two men fought Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan as part of an American-backed resistance effort during the 1980s. He served as a senior official in the Taliban government before fleeing to Pakistan in 2001.